Tattoos

I just joined ADGA and got my membership packet and tattoo assignment. How do I get a goat tattooed? Do I need to buy the equipment and do it myself or is there somewhere I can go where it can be done (vet or tattoo clinic???)?
Also, I have a doe that I'm going to be registering as NOA. The info from ADGA says that every animal born on my farm should be tattooed. Do I still have to have my doe done to be able to register her? I did not breed her. Thanks!

Best to buy the tattoo equipment and do it yourself. But I'm sure you could have a vet do it as well. Mine does. But it would probably be more expensive that way, and more trouble to haul them back and forth.

Its easiest if you do it. The tattoo kit is a one time buy, i paid about seventy dollars for mine including shipping. https://www.caprinesupply.com/shop/?pag ... c038e6a68d
this is where i got mine. There are several different sizes. Personally i like the 5/16. Its large enough to read easily. But small enough that its easy to use in tail webs, on lamanchas, and nigerian or pygmy ears. Another feature i really like is that it holds five characters rather then four like most. Makes it great for whethers who in washington have to be tattooed with WA in front of the herd tattoo. Anytime i take animals to auction they ask to see tattoos for scrapie ID. You may want to check into your state for info on that. My herd tattoo is three letters. So i can easily put the WA in front of my herd tattoo. When i had a set of pliers with room for only four letters i had to line up and hopefully match two different tattoo marks in the same ear. I also suggest ordering two sets of numbers 0-9 that way if you get into the douple digets you have them. Its really hard to do kid number 11 with only one #1. These tattoo kits come with or without an ear release. Mine don;t have it. In theory the ear release is suposed to push the ear away when you let go of the pliers. But it really doesn't work and i find it just gets in the way.
Another thing i did was order two sets of pliers, this way i can have my herd tattoo set up in one set of pliers and the numbers set up in the other. It makes it a lot faster when i only have to change out the numbers rather then going back and forth between the herd tatoo and then the number between each kid each time.
I don't know if any vets do this or not. You can check your local area. Personally i like doing it when i disbud my kids. All done in one swoop. The kids yell and wiggle but in a few seconds they forget about it.
If you decide to do it yourself use the green ink. Even white ears black doesn;t show well. And white fades in a year or two.
here is a good page on how to do it. Though this shows a tailweb as these people have lamanchas its pretty much the same in the ears.http://fiascofarm.com/goats/tattoo.htm
hope this helps
beth

I tattoo my goats myself. Jeffers Livestock is reasonable on their tattoo outfits. I use a small animal tattoo outfit. It is very easy to do. Once you get your tattoo outfit, we can give you instructions on how to do it.

We do ours and the only thing I would add is get 2. One for just your herd letters. You can order just the letters and not have to buy the whole alphabet. That way you don't have to change every time you tattoo.

We got our first one from TSC. It is used for the year letter and number of the goat. The second one I ordered from Hoggers and it is used for the herd letters.